The Xiaomi Philips EyeCare Smart Lamp 2 – Review

The Xiaomi Philips EyeCare Smart Lamp 2 is a slick new desk lamp from Xiaomi and part of the Mi Home suite of smart appliances. It’s a much-improved successor to the Smart Desk Lamp and a collaboration between the Chinese manufacturer and Philips, one of the world’s largest electronics companies.

While intended primarily for the Chinese market, Xiaomi’s tie-up with Philips has increased our attention on their lighting products. Xiaomi want to be the biggest manufacturer of lighting in China and the EyeCare smart Lamp 2 is a big step towards that goal, especially when combined with the useful Mi Home app.

Unboxing and Specs

In the box we had the lamp, a charger, and manual. The lamp looks elegant and clean, almost medical with top-notch build quality, perfect for a dorm room or modern home office. Next let’s look at the basics. The Smart Lamp has a dual light source with an LED strip on the head and another on the back of the stand. The head has a flexible joint encased in comfortable silicone that feels solid and reassuring to handle. It looks great—seamless and high-tech. You can adjust the light to any angle, rotate it to the left or right, twist it from side to side, and even turn it up a full 180 degrees for optimal illumination no matter what you’re doing. It’s 18 cm by 46.4 cm by 43.6 cm and weights just 1 kg, making it easy to position on a desk.

Compared to the previous Mi Home Smart Lamp, the light looks better and is significantly brighter with two wide LED strips. This spreads the light more evenly. The wide-angle lighting strip (GB 50034-2004 standard) has a central luminance of 1,200 lux. At a 90 centimeter diameter spread is 300 lux on average and at 120 centimeters it’s 120 lux. The built-in sensor has a light calibration algorithm. Basically, the light from the LED lamp is medium-warm and pleasant, and that’s what you really want to know.

Using the EyeCare Smart Lamp 2

Once we checked out the specs and set up the lamp, it worked like a charm. There are no buttons or switches just elegant touch sensors. The smart touch panel is used to turn the lamp on and off and adjust the brightness with just a swipe. When it gets dark, the lamp enters Smart Night Light mode on its own. While it’s easy to adjust the head light to a variety of useful positions, it does require two hands to place properly. There is no option to change the color temperature, so it’s a good thing that the default is on the pleasant side. With the LED strip on the back of the lamp, you need to position it against a wall or other flat surface to take full advantage of the ambient light. This makes it better for the home office or personal use. With that in mind, the rear LED panel adds a comfortable glow to a white wall and diffuses the illumination across any screen, book, magazine, or writing surface.

The real value for your money comes with the Mi Home app. You connect over WiFi and it can be a little tricky, but no more so than most smart apps. (Don’t worry, it’s in English.) The Mi Home app can be used to turn the lamp on and off, adjust brightness, and set a timer or schedule on your phone. Mi Home also offers modes for studying, reading, and computer use to improve eye care. You can also set eye fatigue reminders to rest your eyes after a set number of minutes, really justifying the Eye Care name. Eye fatigue is way more common than you think and it’s a great addition to normal smart features.

Perfect for a student, creative worker, or home office setup, the Xiaomi Philips Eye Care Smart Lamp 2 is a worthy contender for your next smart appliance, especially with the Mi Home app. Ideal for Chinese users, it’s easy to see this model making an appearance in other countries and we look forward to seeing more Mi Home products to complete the product suite.

Check out the unboxing video from Xiaomi below! You can buy the lamp for around $50 here.